The Full Moon in Gemini is exact tonight at 8:08pm PST. The Sun is in the Sagittarius mansion, so we are in consideration of Jupiter’s domain. Expansion, abundance and prosperity, joy, spiritual seeking, education, and travel are just some of the ways that Sagittarius energy expresses itself. The avatar of Sag is the archer, and a Centaur to boot, where the arrows in this image are about all the ways Sagittarius wants to explore, and through those explorations formulate an understanding of how life works. If there is such a thing as higher truth, it was invented by Sagittarius. Therefore, in a Full Moon in the Opposite sign of Gemini, we are releasing our lower truths, or all of the ways our thinking mind inhibits our ability to expand into all that we can be.
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This is the final Full Moon of the year, and what a year it has been. Mars is retrograde, and that generates some delay, where things we work on now may not show up in the world of form till after he goes direct in January. Mercury, the ruling planet of this Full Moon, has just entered Capricorn, the sign of ambitions, goals, and the responsibility needed to build something of importance. But he will go retrograde here, so again, what we accomplish now in terms of the inner work may not show up in obvious ways until Mercury finishes his retrograde cycle as January becomes February. Jupiter, the planet of manifestation is at the most fertile place in the zodiac, so his capacity to help us manifest new things may not rise up till after he enters Aries, which he does at the end of the month. The inner work right now is deep, but the evidence of it may not show up in ways that we will see clearly until some more time passes.
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Every Full Moon is about release, but on the side of this lunation is something powerful in the realm of shadow work. Pluto is holding an Opposition with Black Moon Lilith, a shadow point that has direct access to the rumblings just below the surface of our unconscious. When stuff bubbles up from down below and we trip on it, that’s BML in action. When we do shadow work, and consciously look under the hood at motivations that come from unconscious places, that also involves BML. Put this juicy point in an Opposition with the Lord of the Underworld, and we are all moving through an undeniable confrontation with what is below the surface. BML has been in Cancer for the last almost nine months helping us dive into childhood wounds, and challenges that emanate out of our family of origin. This powerful faceoff with Pluto is helping us do some deep excavation with this Full Moon.
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But perhaps the most powerful element of this Full Moon is its exact Conjunction with the retrograding Mars. And I mean exact, so if you have been following me for any appreciable time, you know how much I love precision. This is not random, the more precise the geometry, the larger the wave we get to ride. The Moon and Mars are 5 minutes apart – that’s 5/60th of a degree, an infinitesimal closeness that puts every single bit of release mojo we are moving through and dials it directly into Mars. By virtue of being in backward motion, Mars is closer to our unconscious experience than our conscious awareness. Material released in this Full Moon (thank you Pluto and BML), will be dialed directly into the Mars cycle, helping us free ourselves from old, outdate behaviors that come from our wounded spaces. Again, evidence of this may not appear until late January when Mars is moving forward again.
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Jupiter is at the final degree of Pisces. Known as the anaretic degree, when a planet is at this final, 30th degree of any sign, its consciousness, and the lens of the sign it is in, is completely amplified. Jupiter is about expanding and getting bigger in every way. Full Moons help us make more room on the inner landscape by releasing unconscious material that is ready to be dropped, and the resulting space we make in our psyche is immediately filled with the power of manifestation. Jupiter is hovering at the most fertile point of the entire ecliptic; 30-Pisces into 0-Aries is known as the birth canal of the zodiac, as everything must start as potential (Pisces) before it can burst into form (Aries). Jupiter will move into Aries just as the year is turning, and the release of this Full Moon sets us up for a much more powerful 2023, as Jupiter helps us bring more of what we desire, and Aries is where all new things get started.
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Get out your journals and write, for this is a lunation that favors using the mind to cull through what is happening below the surface. What is Mars in his retrograde teaching you about anger, reactivity, and how you approach the goals and ambitions that drive you? How are you currently relating to old, deep wounds that come out of your family of origin? And perhaps most importantly, how is patience rising up within you? That last question is because all of these overlapping cycles are telling us that the work is on the inside, and what we desire to achieve may take some time.
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Gemini invented ideas and thoughts, and through this capacity to think, we create our perceptions of the world around us. Perception is everything, and that’s truly what we’re working with, both in this Full Moon in Gemini, but also with Mars retrograde in the same sign. You can create a new world in an instant, simply by changing what you focus on, but we are bound to the habitual perceptions, most of which are unconscious. But the unconscious is wide open in this Full Moon and so we can release limited perceptions that no longer serve with ease. Remember, Gemini are the twins, and one of them is always holding you back. This is the Full Moon where we ask that one to give it up, and allow us to move in brand new ways, free of the limits of the past. It may just take some time to see the results, but have at it.